AMD Radeon Vega 10 Mobile

AMD Radeon Vega 10 Mobile

AMD Radeon Vega 10 Mobile: Review and Capability Analysis in 2025

April 2025


Introduction

The AMD Radeon Vega 10 Mobile graphics card, despite its age, remains a popular choice for budget and mid-range laptops. Built on the Vega architecture, it combines energy efficiency with sufficient performance for everyday tasks and light gaming. In this article, we will explore its strengths and weaknesses that are relevant in 2025.


1. Architecture and Key Features

Architecture: Vega 10 is based on the GCN 5.0 (Graphics Core Next) microarchitecture, developed by AMD to balance performance and energy consumption.

Process Technology: The 14nm FinFET process is considered outdated by 2025 standards but is still acceptable for mobile devices.

Unique Features:

- FidelityFX – a set of AMD technologies for enhancing graphics (contrast sharpening, upscaling).

- FreeSync – support for adaptive synchronization to eliminate screen tearing.

- Lack of hardware ray tracing – unlike modern NVIDIA GPUs (RTX 3050 Mobile) or AMD RDNA 3, Vega 10 does not support RT cores.

Note: Software methods are used for processing light and shadows, which reduces FPS in games with ray tracing effects.


2. Memory

Type and Capacity:

- Integrated graphics – uses shared system RAM (up to 2 GB of allocated VRAM).

- Memory Type: DDR4/LPDDR4x depending on the laptop configuration.

Bandwidth: Up to 48 GB/s (when using DDR4-2400).

Impact on Performance:

- Limited bandwidth and shared memory create a "bottleneck" in games with high-resolution textures (e.g., Cyberpunk 2077 or Horizon Forbidden West).

- For comfortable operation, a minimum of 16 GB RAM in dual-channel mode is recommended.


3. Gaming Performance

Average FPS metrics (1080p, low/medium settings):

- CS:2 – 60-70 FPS.

- Fortnite – 45-55 FPS (without RT).

- GTA VI – 30-40 FPS (lower texture quality).

- Elden Ring – 25-35 FPS (requires optimization of settings).

Supported Resolutions:

- 1080p – optimal for most projects.

- 1440p and 4K – not recommended due to lack of power.

Ray Tracing: Not supported. In games with ray tracing effects, you will have to disable these features.


4. Professional Tasks

Video Editing:

- Suitable for basic editing in DaVinci Resolve or Premiere Pro when working with resolutions up to 1080p.

- Rendering 4K videos will be slow (2-3 times longer than on NVIDIA GTX 1650 Mobile).

3D Modeling:

- Compatible with Blender via OpenCL, but performance is limited. Creating complex scenes will require patience.

Scientific Computing:

- Inferior to CUDA-supported solutions (NVIDIA) due to less optimization for OpenCL.


5. Power Consumption and Thermal Output

TDP: 15-25 W (depends on the laptop configuration).

Cooling Recommendations:

- Laptops with a metal chassis and dual fans perform better.

- Avoid models with passive cooling – throttling may occur under load.

Tips: Use cooling pads for extended gaming sessions.


6. Comparison with Competitors

AMD Radeon 780M (RDNA 3):

- 80-100% faster in games.

- Supports ray tracing.

NVIDIA MX550:

- Better optimization for creative tasks.

- Comparable gaming performance.

Intel Arc A350M:

- Performs better in DX12 projects due to new drivers.

Conclusion: Vega 10 Mobile lags behind modern counterparts but is cheaper (laptops starting from $450).


7. Practical Tips

Power Supply: A standard 65W adapter is sufficient.

Compatibility:

- Only for laptops with AMD Ryzen 5 2500U/3500U processors and their equivalents.

- Check for BIOS updates to improve stability.

Drivers:

- Regularly update through AMD Adrenalin.

- Avoid "beta versions" – they may cause conflicts with outdated hardware.


8. Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Low price of laptops.

- Energy efficiency.

- Support for FreeSync.

Cons:

- Weak performance in new games.

- No hardware ray tracing.

- Limited suitability for professional use.


9. Final Conclusion

Who is Vega 10 Mobile suitable for?

- Students – for studying, video watching, and light gaming.

- Office Users – working with documents and browsing.

- Budget Gamers – for running older or less demanding titles.

Why in 2025?

Despite its outdated architecture, Vega 10 remains an option for those looking for an affordable laptop without overspending on "new arrivals." However, for serious tasks, it is better to consider devices based on RDNA 3 or Intel Arc.


Price: Laptops with Vega 10 Mobile in 2025 start from $450 for new models.

Basic

Label Name
AMD
Platform
Integrated
Launch Date
April 2019
Model Name
Radeon Vega 10 Mobile
Generation
Picasso
Base Clock
300MHz
Boost Clock
1400MHz
Bus Interface
IGP
Transistors
4,940 million
Compute Units
10
TMUs
?
Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) serve as components of the GPU, which are capable of rotating, scaling, and distorting binary images, and then placing them as textures onto any plane of a given 3D model. This process is called texture mapping.
40
Foundry
GlobalFoundries
Process Size
14 nm
Architecture
GCN 5.0

Memory Specifications

Memory Size
System Shared
Memory Type
System Shared
Memory Bus
?
The memory bus width refers to the number of bits of data that the video memory can transfer within a single clock cycle. The larger the bus width, the greater the amount of data that can be transmitted instantaneously, making it one of the crucial parameters of video memory. The memory bandwidth is calculated as: Memory Bandwidth = Memory Frequency x Memory Bus Width / 8. Therefore, when the memory frequencies are similar, the memory bus width will determine the size of the memory bandwidth.
System Shared
Memory Clock
SystemShared
Bandwidth
?
Memory bandwidth refers to the data transfer rate between the graphics chip and the video memory. It is measured in bytes per second, and the formula to calculate it is: memory bandwidth = working frequency × memory bus width / 8 bits.
System Dependent

Theoretical Performance

Pixel Rate
?
Pixel fill rate refers to the number of pixels a graphics processing unit (GPU) can render per second, measured in MPixels/s (million pixels per second) or GPixels/s (billion pixels per second). It is the most commonly used metric to evaluate the pixel processing performance of a graphics card.
11.20 GPixel/s
Texture Rate
?
Texture fill rate refers to the number of texture map elements (texels) that a GPU can map to pixels in a single second.
56.00 GTexel/s
FP16 (half)
?
An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy.
3.584 TFLOPS
FP64 (double)
?
An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy, while single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.
112.0 GFLOPS
FP32 (float)
?
An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.
1.756 TFLOPS

Miscellaneous

Shading Units
?
The most fundamental processing unit is the Streaming Processor (SP), where specific instructions and tasks are executed. GPUs perform parallel computing, which means multiple SPs work simultaneously to process tasks.
640
TDP
15W
Vulkan Version
?
Vulkan is a cross-platform graphics and compute API by Khronos Group, offering high performance and low CPU overhead. It lets developers control the GPU directly, reduces rendering overhead, and supports multi-threading and multi-core processors.
1.2
OpenCL Version
2.1
OpenGL
4.6
DirectX
12 (12_1)
Shader Model
6.4
ROPs
?
The Raster Operations Pipeline (ROPs) is primarily responsible for handling lighting and reflection calculations in games, as well as managing effects like anti-aliasing (AA), high resolution, smoke, and fire. The more demanding the anti-aliasing and lighting effects in a game, the higher the performance requirements for the ROPs; otherwise, it may result in a sharp drop in frame rate.
8

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)
Score
1.756 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS
1.821 +3.7%
1.684 -4.1%
1.639 -6.7%